Family, Photography and other misc news
Today was a quick trip across to Chesterfield and a family get together.
Over the course of this month it is Alan’s, Caroline’s, Angela’s, and Roberts Birthdays.
So a meet up, lots of cake, and fun and games with the Children and of course Tilly & Molly the two Labradors.
Well this morning it was an early rise, though we decided not to arrive at dawn like last time. Now the mornings are getting earlier, getting to location at dawn is getting much harder. No dedication thats the problem!
Not a serious wildlife shoot but more a test of technique and a bit of practice.
I met Chris Bennett at the car park, at a rather civilised 08:00 in the morning, and we loaded up with tripods, cameras and lens. I was travelling rather light just a single camera and lens together with the tripod. Though I did have spare CF (Compact Flash Cards) and a spare camera battery in my coat pocket.
During the course of the morning, I tried several different techniques and camera focusing modes. I was not expecting any particularly good shots but as you can see above, while not portfolio material there not too bad.
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The limiting factor as always was shutter speed. Due to the light levels and the fact I limited myself to ISO400 my shutter speed was often not quite high enough to freeze the action, thus a lot of unsharp photographs.
But certainly a worthwhile exercise.
Thanks to Chris for allowing me to tag a long, its fun having someone along who knows what they’re doing and knows there birds as well as Chris does.
Remember photography is a skill and a craft. It needs constant practice, even a day where you come back with no great shots is not waste. Time spent familiarising yourself with your equipment so you can use it without thinking means, when the light and that perfect shot becomes available you can concentrate on getting that shot, not having to think about how you use your camera or what mode/exposure it should be.
As you can see not bad results but in no way perfect. Before any of you start blaming your equipment, remember; wildlife photographers have been producing stunning images for decades. What equipment did they have? Now we have far better equipment then then ever did. Get out there and practice. Learn your equipment, your craft and your subject.
Get out there and get that killer shot.
The weather is getting better and spring is definitely in the air.
I have spotted a number of birds starting their mating rituals, and now is a good time to get some great shots.
Tomorrow subject to good weather I am going to pop over to the local park and try to get a few good bird shots.
We will see how it goes.
Wildlife, especially bird photography is a difficult and expensive area. Going for an APC-C sized sensor gives you the advantage of that x1.5 crop factor with Nikon and x1.6 for Canon. But as the megapixel count goes up noise generally also goes up. Shooting at dawn, long lens needed, that crop factor can be a helpful and a cost affective way of extending your lens. That consumer 70-300mm f/5.6 lens becomes a 105 (112) – 450 (480)mm with no loss of aperture, but unless light is good you have to crank up the iso until your photos look poor. The other option, a low noise full frame sensor, now you can really crank up the iso and get excellent clean files. But now your 70-300mm f/5.6 is just that, it only reaches 300mm.
Spend good money or make compromises, its a very difficult area. Compromise; well you could try that 300mm f/4 with a x1.4 teleconverter, but again not a cheap solution.
Many top bird photographers are using 400mm f/2.8 with x2 teleconverters. Thats when you start to realise that a D3s is cheap and is only the start of the real expense.
Something all photographers worry about, this the third in a series of posts will look at:
Aperture
The aperture you use can have a major impact on sharpness. The effect can be pleasing or unwanted.
Generally most lens will be a little unsharp wide open, for a fast portrait lens a little unsharpness round the edges can be quite pleasing. The main difference between ‘professional’ lens and ‘consumer’ lens is generally, they are faster and a little sharper wide open, but you can still get great results with cheaper lens. The key is to use them at there optimum aperture. Most lens even the cheapest can perform quite well when stopped down a little.
If your after a simple rule use your lens at f/8 or f/11 and you will get the best out of it.
There is also another consideration. Defraction. Closing down the lens a little does improve sharpness but closing down too far actually starts to lower quality as defraction starts to impact. So as a general rule close down a stop or two for maximum quality and sharpness but don’t stop down too much and only shoot wide open open if you want a slight softness.
Well I keep going on about the tools I want for for the iPad, especially tools that link to Adobe’s Lightroom. But what if you don’t use Lightroom but use its arch rival Apple’s Aperture or even just iPhoto from Apple’s iLife Suite of apps.
Well there is now an app for you too. Pixelsync. As I use iPhoto for some tasks, I might give it a try.
That also gives me an idea for a future blog post, workflow.
This week, it is my wonderful wife’s birthday. We are taking tomorrow off work to go out for a nice meal.
As promised I have the DVD’s you wanted but did I get you an iPad? You will just have to wait and see.
Lots of Love from all the family.
PS for Photographers out there, buying your partner some nice flowers also gives you the opportunity for you to practice your still life techniques. Just don’t tell them!
I was thinking that I would have my next flower photo shoot in the studio, but then I thought it would be good to show you what could be achieved with just two flash guns outside on a sunny day.
The setup is relatively easy. Camera on tripod with hot shoe flash and a moderately short telephoto lens in my case a D200 with a Nikkor 105mm f/2.8.
To my right I mounted a Nikon SB-800 hotshoe flash. This was mounted onto a small light stand and was firing into a small brolly.
The camera mounted flash was set up as a trigger and was not contributing to the overall exposure.
Behind the flowers I had a black cloth. This was supported by the usefully provided double ended clip that comes with the Nikon Macro Flash kit.
The actual exposure was very simple I switched the camera to manual and set the flash to FP Hi speed sync.
I picked a shutter speed in conjunction with an aperture to give me sufficient depth of field and but would underexpose the picture. The flower exposure would be handled by TTL flash.
After a couple of test shots, the photos looked a little dim, so I dialed in +2/3’s of a stop and they looked good.
I had an email from a model today asking for me to shoot her.
She has no experience and wanted me to cover all the costs and pay her £45 an hour for the shoot!
Models please be serious!
I sometimes do tfcd, but if I am paying you, it’s normally for a commissioned shoot, and you can provide me with the professionalism, experience and look I need with the minimum of work and direction, so I can nail the shot the client wants in minimum time.
If you have no experience then you have to start at the bottom, working tfcd or paying a photographer to build experience and a dramatic portfolio.
While I do not have an iPad yet, I like many other photographers can see the use they can be put through.
While some consider it useless, and label it a toy, unable to be used for real work, a joke for professionals, many people think its great for when you cannot take the trouble to carry a laptop.
To be honest when travelling I sometimes take Medium Format Camera equipment, 35mm equipment, lighting equipment and heavy tripods and light stands. Sometimes the last thing I want to add is a laptop.
Yesterday I spotted a posting from Adobe about a beta Photoshop App (see Chris Bennett’s Blog Post).
Photoshop is not one of the key apps that would make me buy an iPad but if someone released the Library Module of Adobe Lightroom then I would be buying an iPad like a shot.
Well that day may well be nearly here. Check out the Photosmith Blog. This seems to offer what I want.
For heavy image work then a laptop in the field in not really the tool. Heavy image work is a job for back in the office/home with a powerful computer and controlled lighting conditions in the room, and a calibrated monitor. No, in the field its evaluating your work, making picks, keywording, metadata and quick adjusts to help you evaluate the shots.
When this gets released, together with some of the tethering apps that are coming out; Elinchrom’s and Hasselblad’s remote control apps then the iPad will be coming with me, out in the field and in the studio.